My Holiday Post-Mortem

Thursday: Flew to Albuquerque via ORD. No issues, great flight. Met a nice guy who bought me a drink. Chilled with the fam and grandparents talking, then went to bed.

Friday: Woke up fairly early, had crossants for breakfast (Mommom, my grandmother, got them from a local bakery). Went to Old Town for some shopping, lunch at Le Peep, and a few malls. Then went home and chatted with my cousin Amity and her boyfriend Brandon, and then all went out to dinner at Garbanzos, a Mexican place. YUM. Then we went to church at a Presbyterian church for Christmas Eve, then came home and saw my Aunt Rufina, Uncle Rich, and Rufina's niece Cecile who had arrived from Dallas and DC. Went for a Christmas Eve walk to see the luminaria. Albuquerque is known for its luminaria on Christmas Eve and my grandparent's neighborhood is one of the places on the official tour. It's so cool and I love being there for Christmas.

Saturday: Had brunch and opened stockings and presents at 10 AM. Rufina, Rich, and Cecile went to mass at 12:30, the rest of us relaxed. We all went for a walk along the Rio Grande (about 1/2 a mile from my grandparent's house) and it was a lovely day! Then we played an awesome game of dominoes and had a great Christmas dinner with pecan pie for dessert. YAY! Super fun day.

Sunday: Got up really early for a 9:30 family photo. This hysterical Italian photographer named Vinnie (just kidding, his name was Michael) came and took lots of pictures. I will publish if possible. Then we drove to Santa Fe for lunch at Geronimo, a great restaurant. Rich and Rufina have friends from England and this is their favorite restaurant in the states! I had a great salad, the best bread I've ever had, champaign, Elk tenderloin, and toffee cheesecake. And that doesn't even describe how good the meal was. Then we went to a famous chapel and to the town square in Santa Fe. YAY. Then back home and basically chilling and sleeping.

Monday: Oh my gosh, had to get up for breakfast at 7:45 before Amity and Brandon had to work. I was NOT feeling good about all of this getting up early... so hard on my body! So we did that and then went to Old Town one more time and then off to the airport. My flight from ABQ to Denver was fine, and then I volunteered to be bumped for a free ticket off my next flight (sound familiar?). It was a 5:35 flight, I was then confirmed first class on an 11:25 flight the next morning but I waited to see if I could get on a 9:08 PM flight that night. It was 15 people overbooked and I was 1/29 on the standby list. Since they won't take voluntters for a standby passenger to get on, that means 16 people had to not show up at all for me to get on the flight. Yeah right. But being stubborn (and don't forget tired) I waited it out... they asked for volunteers, but then they asked them to go ahead and board which meant they weren't too overbooked. At the end they thought 2 people didn't get on... but they found one ticket and paged the other person and she came running up. I was so tired that I cried when I didn't get on, and the gate agent looked so sad for me because she knew I wanted to get on. The thing that killed me was the 9:08 flight was pushed back to 10:30 because the flight before was late leaving Orange County, and at least 4 people showed up in that 82 minute period. Which means I would have made it if the flight left on time. Poor Vin and Russ and my mother had to endure all of my crabbiness, but I did get to catch up with Adds and Erin on the phone, that was nice. I tried to hide my crabbiness from Adds and Erin and Russ, but Russ TOTALLY picked up on it. Tells you something about how wells he knows it. Vin and my Mom I didn't even play games with. I'm going to stop being emotional around Vin, he HATES it. :-) For serious. But that's another story entirely.

Tuesday: Finally got home... had an AWESOME flight, very relaxing and enjoyable, then saw an engineer I work with in the airport. Then I got on the Max (Portland train) and saw 2 NU IE grads! Super funny. Then Vin picked me up at the airport. He kidnapped me to his house, so I took a nap and a shower there, then we went out to a really nice dinner. I love "Italian nights" because we drink wine and he acts all chivalrous (he was even joking about that). Then we went to Bed Bath and Beyond and chatted it up forever and hysterical stuff. I even did circle circle square square, spiders crawling in your hair, tight squeeze, cool breeze, now you've got the chills. Yeah, he thought I was as crazy as you do.

Wednesday: Got the oil changed in Jake, then went to Target, Michaels, and Office Depot for a shredder and to look at scrapbooking stuff. Then to Chipotle, then home for lunch and to shred stuff and attempt unpacking / cleaning. Then I tried sleeping and then woke up, had a snack, and went to work.

Tomorrow I will try to get up by 4 so that I can spend a few hours with Vin before he leaves until the 10th. Kinda stinks because I get less sleep and my apartment will remain a huge mess. Adds is coming up (I hope) for New Years and I think we're going to go to a party at my co-worker Doug's house. YAY that will be fun. Kristie wants me to do something with her but she was invited to Doug's too so maybe she'll go. Just today I got 3 different New Year's proposals, YAY I feel popular. Which is good because all too often I feel so lonely in Portland. I miss Keithers.

Speaking of lonely, I did a lot of reflection and thinking while gone. I think I'm going to do even more in the next 10 days while Vin is gone. I definitely am planning on a fun weekend with Adds, and then shopping on Monday and hiking on Tuesday or the other way around depending on the weather. I definitely want to get some hiking in because I want to start getting in shape for the spring/summer when I can do some more serious climbs. I'm also going to have to spend time biking (for endurance), doing stairs (for climbing), and running (for general fitness) so that I can become more hardcore. Gee, my favorite things. If only I just wanted to swim. So that's my goal and I'm super excited. But hiking will give me lots of time to think which will be super nice. Then I'll have a 4 day work week, then just a Sunday alone and then Vin comes home. Sounds like a good deal to me!

I haven't been commenting in people's blogs lately -- but I still read them. And I added Julius to the list, so hopefully I'm not one of the people he doesn't want to read it. :-/ But yay for blogs.

I have decided to make what I think will be the first New Year's Resolution of my life: go hiking more. My reasons for this are threefold:
1. See the beautiful Northwest
2. Learn to be a better hiker so that I can climb Rainer
3. Get in shape
YAY for hiking. :-)

IOWA

SO funny, I just wrote Adds this comment in her blog about how much I miss her, and then I read my comments (I don't get them emailed to me anymore because my school email is gone) and she wrote me a comment saying she misses me. THAT is true love.

So WOW it's been a while... when I'm not in Oregon I sort of forget about the blogging. Here's the lowdown:

Saturday -- Travelled almost the whole day. Left work about 5:30 AM (after a REALLY good conversation with a co-worker) and got the awesome Vin to drive me to the Max station. Got to see the sun rise over Mt. Hood, then took my flight to the lovely O'Hare International Airport. Oh how I love Chicago. And it was just a classic Chicago wintery day. YAY. Then my flight to Cedar Rapids was about an hour late (that makes 2/2 for Iowa) but I got home. Saturday night I slept a LOT because I had been up since basically 3:30 PM on Friday, with a little plane sleep in there. I also went to my beloved Panera with my mom, which I've been wanting for a long time. Soooo good.

Sunday -- Slept in super late. Yikes. Then my sister and dad and I tried to go out for Thai but the Thai places were closed and it was getting late and she had to be at work, so we went to the food court in the mall - biggest mall in Iowa, yee haw! Then my dad and I came back home and I definitely took ANOTHER nap. Then my mom and I went to Target and on a secret Christmas mission and then picked my sister up. Then my mom made me guacamole and chile con queso... her Texas specialities! YAY for my Texan roots... 5th generation Texan right here peeps! Then my sister and I got an "early Christmas present" -- season 7 of Friends for her and season 8 for me. I now officially have all of the seasons that have been relased. Once I have 9 and 10 my collection will be complete. So we watched that the rest of the night.

Monday -- Saw my sister's apartment for the first time... SO CUTE. It's right in downtown Iowa City and is just awesome. I really like it a lot! Then we actually went out for Thai food, yumalicious. Only not so much, definitely there is better Thai to be had in Oregon. Oh well. Then my sis and I went on some secret shopping missions for our parents and then to see Oceans 12. DEFINITELY not that great of a movie. Oh well, I wasn't expecting it to be. I got to have a super fun day with the lil sis though! Then we came home and had steak and twice baked potatoes... YUM YUM YUM. My mom's steak is one of my favorite foods in the WORLD. YUM. Then more Friends!

Tuesday -- Went to Panera again (I need to go like 8 times while I'm here), and then went and visited Christine at work. Then went to various random stores at the mall with my mom. Then we went to this wine store (really a grocery store with a good wine and beer selection) that actually had wine from a vineyard I've been to in Oregon. I was impressed. And they had beer from a brewery in Portland, but not a very amazing one as far as I'm concerned. I love Oregon. Anyway though and we went to a pretty cute scrapbooking store which I enjoyed, because you know me and the scrapbooking. With all of this free time (and being in IOWA) I really have wished that I had my scrapbooking stuff, but you can't take all of those scissors and stuff as a carry-on and I wasn't about to check it. Oh well... so then we came home and my mom made lasagna... yay. Seriously I love being home because it is super yum. Then we watched Friends and played dominoes, and anyone who knows me knows I'm into the dominoes. So yeah, it's been a good day. I need to work on wrapping Christmas presents and packing for New Mexico tomorrow.

So the lowdown... I miss Portland. As much as I say I hate it and have no friends, I so DO have actually a pretty good amount of friends. Being on shift actually is reasonably hard in terms of having time for people, but when/if I'm on shift 4 (the front half of the week) I'll have TONS more time to be able to see friends on weekends and my two really good girlfriends are on shift 4 so I can see them more too. So I'm totally praying for that to happen sometime in 2005. And I love all that there is to do in Portland... the coast, the gorge, the vineyards, Seattle, the breweries, the movies, PCG, Corvallis, scrapbooking, hiking, the river, etc. Some of that isn't Portland-exclusive but I think the point is it's really starting to feel like home. And that makes me smile. I guess in the best of all worlds my parents would still live in Chicago and I could see all of my friends and family at the same time, but a co-worker told me the other day "you win some, you lose some". It really humbled me, because I tend to get really mad and upset when things aren't just my way. I don't just accept how true that statement is... we don't get everything handed to us on a silver platter in life, so the sooner we learn to just chill and accept that, the better off we are. So I'm trying to accept that, and I know that soon enough I'll visit Chicago and see everyone that I so miss and love. :-)

If I don't blog until then, Merry Christmas everyone. I really do miss and love you all.

Nothing kewl

So not really much going on... my teethies are feeling a lot better! Work is going REALLY REALLY well this week, I'm busy and having a lot of fun, so that's great! I'll be home in 36 hours so you can imagine I'm SUPER excited about that one. Iowa City, here I come (that's a joke from about 2 or 3 years ago, before we moved). Don't know if there's too much other excitement going on here... we have a new guy at work. I'm excited for Christmas... can't believe it's in like a week! And that's it. So hopefully I'll have more gottems for you this weekend. :-)

The Great Condo Hoax

NO ONE bought a condo. Patrick wanted me to "slip that in there" to see if anyone would notice we said we bought a condo. Apparently he thinks people just skim blogs or something. But this isn't Crime and Punishment, this is pleasure reading.

I went in this morning and got my teeth fixed up... he took the gauze out forever, which means it hurts more but now can officially start to heal, which I think is a good thing. Hopefully it really will heal and I will be a happy girl! :-) Ummmmmm other than that, I think I'm just chillin'. I'm going to try to put some good music on my iPod and then get some sleep in anticipation of my big 3 day work week... and then glorious 10 day vacation. :-)

Anyway, last night I watched The Day after Tomorrow at Vin's, which was fine but the second time I've seen it. It was sad because I won't see Vin again until after Christmas... boo to that. :-( Unless he's nice enough to take me to the airport at 6:30 AM Saturday, but he's already spent too much time awake in the middle of the night when I call him in pain.

Monday with Patrick was way fun. We had a great breakfast at Hale's in the morning, then went to Tillamook for an afternoon of cheese and ice cream and the Pacific Ocean. Good times. Boo to the rain, that was not the cool part of it. I definitely did not appreciate that. Then we went to Widmer and Patrick had the sampler, so he now knows exactly what types of beer he likes and doesn't like (he likes ambers and hates IPAs, just like me!). Widmer is the best for learning your beer tastes, and then you feel like you at least know something after that. Same with going to the wine tastings at the vineyards, it helps make you more knowledgable. So after that we went to Vin's to drop off this mug he's been wanting from Widmer for 2 years that I finally got for him, and then we went to Old Chicago for beer for Vin and Patrick and dessert for me. :-) Yum. It was a SUPER night. Well, not really because my mouth was really hurting so I was whiney, but in theory it would have been a super night. Check Patrick's blog for the low-down on Vin.

And I think that's all... I'm going to work on the iPod now. Catch y'all on the flip side.

The Dual Blog

Hello from Kelly and Patrick in the Portland. Here's our day:

Patrick woke up, went to the airport at like freaking 4 in the morning or some nonsense. Kelly slept until almost 10 and was almost late picking up Patrick. So I picked him up at 11. Then we went to Burgerville. Patrick had a delicious Tillamook cheeseburger and Kelly had a shake and fries. Then Patrick got to drive the Jake. We went to the Nike Factory Outlet and Patrick got some shiny silver kicks -- tax free!! Then we went looking at houses. Townhomes / condos, actually. All of the realtors thought we were a young married couple with a dual income, however Patrick has no income. We put a down payment on a condo. It was the one that was only $109,000, one bedroom reduced from $125,000. Stainless steel kitchen and granite countertops, and they paid $3500 toward our closing costs. Then we came back here and chilled. Actually I'm lame and needed a little jaw rest so Patrick watched the televisor while I didn't talk. Then we went to the Portland City Grill and had beer and a variety of different appetizers, some of which were delicious. Here's the ranking, for Patrick: tuna, tenderloin, brushetta, chicken. Kelly: brushetta, tenderloin, chicken, tuna. Now we're trying to think of something to do so I'm making Patrick blog. But he's not being funny enough. So I'm going to go beat him. BAM!

Commenting on the comments

So, first of all, I'm glad you peeps like your Christmas cards. :-)

Second of all, I'm NOT PUFFY at all... everyone thinks I'm all chipmunky and I wasn't. I iced for like an hour or two the first day right away, and that was it. I was never swollen at all. Just in lots of pain. And it's weird cause it's pain like up through my jaw and ears and stuff. It feels like someone punched me REALLY HARD on both sides of my face. Does that make sense?

And Adds and Em, thanks for babying me. :-) Online is better than nothing!

Reporting on nothing

So here's the lowdown... the latest I stayed at work this week was 1:30 AM, which is only about halfway into the shift. I was basically worthless. I felt bad for my teammates, but they were really sweet to me. So anyway, Friday morning I broke down and called the dentist, and they had me come in and treated me for dry socket in both of my bottom teeth (gums). They stuffed some gauze covered in clove oil or some such nonsense in my gums and I did not like it! Ugh. It was supposed to make me feel a lot better within a few hours but it did not, so I called back Friday night and got a different pain medicine because the first one that I had didn't make me feel so good. So then I went to work and was just miserable the whole time... I finally left around 12:45 (I've had lots of meetings in the beginning of the shift this week that I've needed to deal with). I tried to sleep but around 2 I gave up because I was just crying the whole time and went over to Vinnie's. He was so sweet and rubbed my back and took care of me a little bit. I just couldn't stand to be alone last night, you know how that is when you don't feel good? Around 4 I FINALLY fell asleep. Thank goodness. I woke up at 9:30 and called the emergency dentist number, they didn't call me back until like 11:30 or so. So then at 11:30 they told me that with dry socket it really is just painful for several days until it heals and I sort of have to deal with it. So I'm taking 2 painkillers every 4 hours which is the max I can take, but it is the only thing that makes it even tolerable. Vin is at my apartment with me now, he's being a good little worker bee at the table doing tons of work, and I've been on my couch all day watching TV and movies. But at least he is here... it's a huge cycle... it feels okay for about an hour, then gets worse and worse and then I finally get to take my medicine, and then it feels bad for about another hour to hour and a half, and then kicks in and YAY it's good for a while. It's just a strange little cycle.

Also, Patrick was nice enough to delay his trip for one day, which is nice because it's let me have some time to recover a little bit and hopefully I'll be better off for his trip. I'm really excited and hope that I can be fun for him.

I guess that is all for now. Not a fun update... just telling about my yuckiness, probably in too much detail... oh well. Goodnight.

My teeth hurt

So all I've done is slept the past 3 days. Oh that and went to Vinnie's house this morning to babysit it while the hot water heater guy came. That is all. More to come when I have a life.

LAME

Did I really just post two posts with practically the same title? WhatEVER.

Here's the weekend:
Saturday we went wine tasting. Super fun. I really had a good time, and finally I have some wine at my apartment! Now I feel like I'm seriously a real adult! I didn't sleep in the morning after work so I fell asleep about 9 PM Saturday night. The wine probably helped in that process as well. But yeah I'm really big on these Oregon vineyards now, I'll have to go again. Let me know if you want to join me!

Sunday we went to breakfast in the morning, then we went to Lowes, Home Depot, Target, and Big Lots to get bins and stuff so I could organize his office. I did and it looks way better! He has some papers he needs to go through but that's not so bad. Then Sunday night as a treat he took me out to Portland City Grill as a "thank you" if you will. Oh how I heart the PCG. :-) Patrick and I will definitely have to go there next weekend.

It was just a super good weekend... we had a lot of fun and I was happy. Haven't been so happy in a month or so... the whole "funk" I'm in, ya know? So it was good and Vin gets major bonus points for cheering me up.

Tooth update:
They hurt, a lot. I thought everything was great but that was still when the local anesthetic hadn't worn off yet. Now that it has I'm feeling NOT SO HOT at all. So poo on that. :-(

Yays and Nays:
Nay to wisdom tooth extraction
Yay to Vicodin

Nay to my wireless being down and having nothing Tivoed for the weekend
Yay to still having the OC, the Apprentice, and a few other shows from last week to watch

Nay to pain
Yay to milkshakes


Okay I'm not good at yays and nays... I'm not in the mood to do it right now, because my teeth hurt. And plus I'm not sure I can live up to Addy's fabulous yays and nays. Perhaps I will try again later!

Quicky update

So the wisdom tooth extraction went fine. He said I was a perfect patient! My friend Beau picked me up afterwards (he was SO CUTE, I was going to call him and he was already there cause he didn't want me to wait!!!) and took me to Walgreens to get some Vicodin. Yay for that, I think I'm going to like it.

So they were just like starting and I was like "umm is there going to be nitrous oxide?" and he was like "oh, do you want it?" So I'm glad I said something. I don't think he realized how scared I was until he really got started and I was so tensed up and crying my eyes out. I wasn't trying to but getting the shots REALLY hurt especially on the inside of my mouth. But his assistant was so nice and held my hand and talked to me and I swear she saved the day. I really really liked her.

Haha Emily just IMed me and goes "are you going to blog while numb?" And I'm like yeeeeeah I am! Okay no more. I need to lie down now, and I'm using two computers (one to blog, one to IM, long story) so I'm going to say goodbye. More tonight I promise.. Well I don't promise cause I don't know how I'll feel, but soon enough.

Quick Update

So I don't have much time to post because Vinnie is harassing me, I'm just saying hello. I have LOTS to post about, we went wine tasting yesterday at a bunch of local vineyards and had the best best best day ever. :-) I feel better about Oregon and I thank you guys all so much for your sweet comments. I was just having a crabby day. And Patrick is coming to visit next weekend so I'm SUPER excited! I keep thinking of fun places to take him, like Widmere or wine tasting or Tillamook or PCG or who knows?! YAY FUN VISITORS. Yay Chicago. Yay Oregon. Okay off to breakfast and then buying stuff for his house which I'm organizing.

Blogs to come...
- Details on my day yesterday
- Information about my new business
- Yays and Nays

It's a good day... and a bad day.

So it's a good day because we have had 100% bloggage update in the last 50 hours! 60% in the last 14 hours! I really like blogging... it brings people together, and it's like we're having one grand conversation with each other, just with a little time delay. I like blogging the way WE do it, as a conversation among friends!

It's also a good day because I talked to my friend Joel from UPS... it was good to catch up. We made sure we had each other's current numbers and are going to talk on the phone soon. He's one of those quality people that just makes you smile and miss him every time you talk to him. It's also a good day because Vinnie came over to cheer me up, and that was just super sweet of him. I have some serious weekend plans, which include wine tasting and salsa dancing on Saturday, then cuddling and organizing (which I love) and church (which I really love) on Sunday. And MAYBE Portland City Grill for happy hour Sunday, woo hoo! Those things just all make me happy.

Do you think I could start a business as a professional organizer? Have you ever seen the show Clean Sweep? I'd be like that... people would hire me that just have some sort of a messy or unorganized situation going on, and I'd swoop in and make it awesome for them. I do it to my parent's house all the time... not that they're messy, but after moving they still had some unpacking and stuff to do so I swoop in and do a great job of organizing it. And I LOVE organizing, I find it relaxing and fun. But honestly, do you think that could be an actual business? I see potential but I'd appreciate feedback.

It was a bad day because I slept from 8:30 - 9:30 but then I woke up because my stalker called me like they do 4 or 5 times a day. Then for some reason I went into this big melodramatic fit which I carried on with myself for about the next 5 hours. I don't know what my deal was. I was like I hate Oregon, I have no friends here, I want to move back to Chicago, etc. I talked to Vin and Patrick about it and they were both like chill out. I think I'm just getting excited about going home for Christmas and the anticipation is killing me. I guess I'm just in a little funk. Hopefully I'll snap out of it and get on with my life soon. :-) I'm cheered up just being at work, I'm one of those people who can just go to work and feel much better about things, which is great.

YAY for updates

FINALLY, some updates on people's blogs. And when it rains, it pours! 80% of the blogs I read were updated today, after a very low Thanksgiving turnout that ran through the weekend.

The best part was seeing Jenni's comment on Ryan's blog, meaning that I'm bringing together the world of bloggers. His entry was about his new car and quite interesting. He said he doesn't have heated seats and that he's anti heated seats, so I left this comment -- "Congrats on the new car. I was always VERY creeped out by heated seats too. But they came on Jake (just kind of one of those "it was an option on the car they had that had every other option I want" deals) and I'm ADDICTED. I used to make fun of my ex (before he was my ex) because in Southern California when it'd get to be 50 or 60 in the mornings he'd have them on. But I do the same thing... those chilly Oregon mornings where it's 40 or 50, they're on. Don't know how I could live without them anymore. "

Jenni's blog was about who she would kill if she could kill anyone, so I don't really know what to say to that one.

Emily's blog was AWESOME because it had a shoutout to me in it, YAY. It was also just interesting overall because she talks about liking to shop when no one else is shopping, which is clearly my favorite thing to do especially because I have Mondays and Tuesdays off so I can get away with that. So that just made me excited. And she talked about how she's bummed about being a grown-up, which I go through all the time. I'm like super excited sometimes but sometimes it really does just sorta suck. Especially because it's so hard to make really good new friends so you just sort of feel like you're lost in the world.

Addy's blog was quite entertaining. It got me all excited about Dave. I miss Dave and can't wait 'til he's back, especially for Addy's sake. And then she talked about Keith's birthday which so made me miss Keith. I don't get to talk to him nearly enough anymore. :-( And Addy's blogs just make me laugh because Addy makes me laugh.

So I guess we're going wine tasting and working on Vinnie's house this weekend. He's upset for some reason, I don't know why. I don't think it has to do with me but I'm just giving him space. Not sure if I'll see him this weekend or not, but that's the plan. I might go salsa dancing with some people Saturday night too, I need to see about that and who's going and stuff.

Then for the Kelly weekend I have a lot of stuff I should get done but I'm not sure if I'll be able to since I have to get my wisdom teeth pulled... any tips?

And Kendra was in my class today (yes I worked all day and I'm working tonight) so I got to see her which was GREAT, plus her husband is going to pick me up after my wisdom tooth appointment Monday. Awesome.